The participating underwater photographers will have three days to shoot their photographs before the submission deadline. In order to get the best shots, divers usually dive to about 100 feet. The photographers are restricted to only 25 minutes of shooting time per dive due to water pressure and air supply constraints. There is no room for error. Fast read and write speeds with their digital film cards as well as reliable, high capacity storage are needed because while submerged, changing or replacing flash film cards is impossible and every shot taken is critical.

"The competition is the ideal platform to highlight the superior capabilities of SanDisk Extreme™ III cards," said Tanya Chuang, SanDisk senior retail product marketing manager. "SanDisk's professional photography line is designed specifically for the market's need for high-speed flash memory storage for the high-performance digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras that will be used in the competition. SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash cards, which range in capacity between 1 and 8 gigabytes (GB) 1, are among the world's fastest cards, with minimum write and read speeds of 20 megabytes per second (MB/sec.) . 2"

Chuang added, "The SanDisk Extreme III Line is ideal for this niche market. We have already taken these cards to extreme locations such as the North Pole and the Sahara Desert and proved their ruggedness. Underwater is the next logical frontier. Our cards have all the requirements for this kind of photography - speed, reliability and up to double the storage of competing cards, offering ample room for all those shots under pressure."

The event will be cosponsored by the local diving magazine, "YAM", and the Isrotel Hotel Chain. Diving assistance will be provided by the Manta Diving Club and the Underwater Observatory in Eliat. Photographers who will not be able to attend the event can mail in entries for the Images of the World competition.

"We are glad that a company of SanDisk's caliber is supporting this event," said Michael Chen, Regional Marketing Director - Israel Ministry of Tourism. "It is nice to see support of the Red Sea region. This is an opportunity to showcase the beauty and hospitality of the area."

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

SanDisk's product images can be downloaded from http://www.sandisk.com/about-sandisk/media-kit SanDisk's web site/home page address: http://www.sandisk.com SanDisk, the SanDisk logo, SanDisk Extreme and CompactFlash are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and are trademarks of their respective holder(s).